


SHELLHEAD - Make the Most of What You Have

by RawWriting



Series: Stony Tiny Bang 2018 [17]
Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Antisemitism, M/M, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Trying to fix the world, anti-muslim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 06:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15989219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RawWriting/pseuds/RawWriting
Summary: Round 2Tony has always tried to live his best life. He hasn't always succeeded, but he has tried. Sadly, the media loves to tear down anything it can. More unfortunately, the recently awakened Steve, has bought into it.*brief passing mentions of Antisemitism and anti-muslim actions, but the story is about Tony's interactions with the world and then with Steve, more than anything else.





	SHELLHEAD - Make the Most of What You Have

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [14 Years](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14942921) by [gilestel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilestel/pseuds/gilestel). 



Tony has so many memories of his childhood. He remembers the funeral. He remembers being sad, but also a bit happy that he gets to live with Aunt Peggy and her Husband and her not wife Angie, and have siblings. He remembers Obie and the company and wanting to invent things to save lives- so he does. He never falls into alcohol like his father, or drugs like his mother. He abstains from most narcotics, knowing and fearing the dangerous siren lure of them for him. He knows it was his Father’s drinking that took his birth parents from him, The company is, not really his- he owns it, but as always, he is more of a doer than an administrator. He appoints Pepper to do it, when he is 26. When he is 27, she uncovers the corruption, and Mum swoops in to fix this, coming out of semi-retirement to rip Obi a new asshole.

Sadly, it is a little too late, as Tony has been drugged and taken by terrorists, as part of the death rattle for Obi’s crumbling empire. For three months, he is tortured and fights to free himself. Three months in a cave, nearly breaks him.

He emerges as Iron Man, and while SHIELD was Mum’s legacy, Tony devotes himself to a new one. To clean energy and a world where no one is ever desperate or frightened enough to seek out terrorist cells as a form of stability. He creates foundations, and pushes peace, aid and education throughout the Middle East, and beyond. The goal of eradicating hunger and having education for all, absolutely all, begins to take shape. Thousands of villages have Stark Water DOGs generating clean drinkable water, using proprietary and well sealed tech. It’s free, but as it can possibly be weaponized, he ensures with multiple failsafes, that the DOG can’t be unsealed. There is outcry over it, but the villages that need it the most- don’t care if the DOG is sealed. It creates up to fifty gallons an hour of pure potable water.

Then there is the Wifi and computer initiative, over fourty two million Starktabs have made their way into teen and child hands, all of them without the means to have gotten them themselves. And the crowd aggregation of ideas, the open forums, the scholarship challenges where any idea that is useful, and usable awards money for college, but those good enough to be used, that are put into production, guarantee not only a full ride to the college of their choice, but a job afterwards in the foundation of their choice.

By the time Tony is 37, he is a little doughy, and a lot worn out from spreading himself so thin... but more than that, he’s incredibly happy. In ten years, sure, okay a few terrorists have sprung up using his programs, but a 0.001% margin of error is fantastic. The media paints it over all of his students, and yeah, he knows they aren’t HIS but, they’re his, the whole world is his, okay, he adopted it and white paternalism is bad and he KNOWS that, but... every single one of the successes are celebrated. He has a reason to get up and work eighteen hour days, because.... he is changing the world. He is fixing things.

Of course, the American Media, and the international media, see him as a monster. There isn’t a day that goes by when his unpatriotic terrorist funding isn’t trotted out. Which, ironic? Useless? Complete slander? He shouldn’t help millions of children because one DOG might be taken by terrorists, or one student might use the education for evil? Please.

Tony looks at the project in Sokovia, the rebuilding and bomb cleaning, as well as therapy programs, when the angry looking man- familiar face making Tony’s stomach swoop, storms in. Oh good. Never meet your idols.

“You-“ he begins, and wow, the arm crossing scowl, guess who read the news and didn’t break it down for himself... Tony decides to take a page from Mum, and not even acknowledge the elephant in the room. He talks about Mum and watches Steve try to flounder. Once he has him off balance, he pulls up the statistics, charts, raw information, and then he educates Steve on what the media is skewing and the modern antisemitism and anti-muslimism that is running rampant and unchecked. By the time Tony is done, Steve looks horrified, but no longer angry. So, Tony takes him to the Room of Recovery.

On the walls, are ten years of innovations driven by the people, by students and teens with dreams. Holograms of students graduating and working, of villages transformed into towns, of hope and prosperity. Of change. “Sure, the world may be falling apart, on the surface, but it’s making room for new growth. The children of tomorrow, they’re doing better than us. And with support, in a generation or two- we might see a world like we both dreamed of, where kids don’t get beaten up in alleys, and the need to scramble for resources is no more than a story we tell our grandchildren about.” Tony’s grown up with stories of the idealistic young man, who never backed down from a fight. He has every bit of Mum’s love for this man, pressed into his bones. “It’s a hard fight, and we’ll be spat on for doing it... but I could always use a little more help, if you want to join?” He offers his hand, and the firm hard handshake feels like a whole body hug to his senses.


End file.
